TN: 2005 Montirius Vacqueyras Garrigues

Josh_Beck · March 30, 2009, 5:52am

2005 Montirius Vacqueyras Garrigues - France, Rhône, Southern Rhône, Vacqueyras (3/29/2009)
Dense and thick stuff. A proper nose of lifted red fruits, bramble, cracked pepper,leather, roasted herbs and minerals. Thick on the palate with plenty of tannin for near-mid term aging and good acidic balance. Clean and well made. Finish is a bit clipped. Give it 2-3 years to unwind a bit, good stuff and good value but I don’t love the oversize bottle, pretty lame for a < $20 wine. (89 pts.)

FWIW, much better than the the Clos d’Agon and the Serafini from last night… nothing earthshattering but at quite pleasing for the $, bottle size aside.

Steve_M_c_C_a_l_l · March 30, 2009, 10:52pm

Josh, maybe I’m being inordinately dense here, but what does < mean? Was it a liter bottle? And how can more wine be a bad thing?

Josh_Beck · March 31, 2009, 1:40am

&lt is a UBB foulup that was was supposed to be a less than symbol, there’s an &gt out there for the truly clever as well

It’s a 750ml bottle, great wine for the price, but the bottle is comparable in size to the bottles used by, say, Clos des Lambrays or Clos du Caillou or Fourrier or the multitude of others that won’t fit my racking. Weighing that into consideration, I’ll make room for Fourrier and Clos des Lambrays before I fart around with this bottle in the future

Steve_M_c_C_a_l_l · March 31, 2009, 2:53am

Gotcha. Thanks for the clarification.

J_e_r_e_m_y_Hannah · March 31, 2009, 4:37am

Nice note. I have been drinking this over the last few weeks as a daily drinker and enjoy it quite a lot. My impressions of this wine (including the goofy bottle size) are almost identical to yours.

Josh_Beck · March 31, 2009, 5:24am

Of fairly-recently-drunk sub $25 Languedoc Roussillon wines I’ve had lately, this is probably my third favorite. The big winner for me is Leon Barral Faugeres which is a classicly pure and lifted red fruit and garrigue and mineral driven grenache with a lot of minerality. Mas de Dames was probably my second favorite, darker and more severe with lots of game and leather and roasted earth. Both are also under $20 and come in friendly bottles sizes. I’m in for, say 2 bottles of Mas de Dames in good years, and 4-6 Barral…

Cris_Whetstone · March 31, 2009, 5:27am

Thanks Josh. I got some of the Mas de Dames from Garagiste and have been thinking about popping one to check them out. Will watch around for your other recs.

Josh_Beck · March 31, 2009, 6:16pm

I’ll be curious to hear what you think of the Mas de Dames Chris, we’ll see if I was just having a good night or if it was up to snuff

Based on the 04 at least (I’ve had it twice now and have another bottle in the queue) I really recommend the Leon Barral Faugeres. I just picked up some 05 from winex at $20 (best price I saw readily available) so I’ll try one of those soon too. It struck me for it’s purity and character, far beyond the norm in the $20 price bracket.

Cris_Whetstone · March 31, 2009, 6:22pm

Cool. I was thinking about dropping by there on Friday on the way to the cellar and trolling the Rhones to see what 07 CdR’s are in. I’ll pick up a couple of those Faugeres.

Josh_Beck · March 31, 2009, 6:45pm

I’ll be curious to hear what you think, I see little to no discussion of this wine but I got turned onto it by a British friend who in turn has a friend who bought an old dilapidated domaine in Faugeres and is trying to bring his wines up the level of the Barral wines. I was at least told that Barral is the guy making waves there in terms of going back to natural winemaking, biodynamic vineyard care, getting away from oak and ripeness.

And hey if you don’t like it only cost you $20 more than everyone else to learn to ignore me.